It's been a long winter.

It has been nearly a month since I wrote last.  It has been a month of snow on snow.  And colds on colds in me and the kids.  It gets so intense!  The small house, the snow, the snotty noses.  Not sure this is a season of goodness at all. 
But I saw a robin last week!  And the weather is warming.  Jay made the seed catalogue order from Territorial Seed Company. 
We've been budgetizing and the beans are helping me out!  The beef and chicken are all gone.  Well, except for the steaks.  But you can't have steak every night.  And anyway, steak isn't very good kid food.
 Last night I came home from work and put rice on to cook.  I sauted onions in a bunch of butter, added a quart of beans, minced in four garlics, and dropped in three cilantro ice cubes.  That went on the rice with lettuce, cheese, and homemade ranch on top.  It was good.  And easy to do.  I like that kind of thing. 
Speaking of ranch dressing - you know, that stuff you buy at the store has a lot stuff in it that you don't need.  This is my recipe for homemade ranch: half plain yogurt and half mayonaisse, add garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and parsley.  Milk if you need it.  You could do all kinds of good things with it.  Use fresh herbs, fresh garlic and onion.  It tastes so much better than anything you buy.
So how do you do steaks?  We had stir fry the other night.  That was good too.